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This is proof that government should never get involved in business or the free market. It engenders cronyism and inept government bureaucrats getting rich off

• sn41 7y ago
  Most large companies depend on government contracts for a substantial part of their business. The government is after all the single biggest consumer in many markets. This, and revolving doors between businesses and government, probably means that corruption of this kind is hard to eliminate.
• projektfu 7y ago
  That's, frankly, impossible. This is one of those things that government has to buy -- streetlights and standards for them. Either the government creates government-owned companies for everything public or it participates in the market. If this were just handed to a private contractor, the same problem would be likely to occur, although the private contractor might be smarter about getting their cut of selling surveillance data.
• Spooky23 7y ago
  Nobody is getting rich from GE stock. Besides, this article is an manifesto/editorial. Some person running for city attorney did a document dump of mostly irrelevant stuff. Lots of ranting, but very little actual content. What data has been collected from a partially implemented streetlight program in San Diego that was sold to “Wall St” for a billion dollars? Who is “Wall St” exactly? Lighting systems like this are administered by a NOC maintained by the vendor. Is that the data in question There isn’t enough information to form an opinion about the “inept bureaucrats”. City attorneys don’t enter contracts, they advise those who do. It’s fair to critique the terms of the contract, but ignorant to accuse someone of violating the law without any merit.